“Dedicated to the music”: Halfmoon Festival is the underground gem of Thailand's island party scene

For those only vaguely familiar with the Thai island of Koh Pha-ngan, its name may bring several connotations to mind: the trailing leaves of palm trees, crystal waters, white sands — and this paradise being overrun once a month by teenaged backpackers descending on the notorious Full Moon party. But the island’s party scene offers much more than that, and in the spaces in between, you’ll find dedicated dance music events run by passionate locals who care deeply for the culture.

Born and raised Koh Pha-ngan native Jao Pattanasiri embodies this tireless energy. He’s been involved in organising hundreds of parties in his homeland since 1999, initially managing two venues, Harmony Club and Zoom Beach Club, before launching his most ambitious venture in 2002: the Halfmoon Festival. The aim was to offer a more credible alternative in the lunar-led clubbing calendar Koh Pha-ngan has become known for — less commercial and more focus on the details that matter. “My hobby is finding and sharing good music,” Jao explains simply.

He also wanted to run an event that’s friendlier to the breath-taking environment of the island. Having worked at Full Moon parties previously, he was troubled by the majority of the many thousands of attendees thoughtlessly littering, rendering full clean-up impossible with trash swept out into the ocean and polluting the surrounding nature. His solution for a more eco-friendly concept was to move the party inland, among the tropical backdrop of the Ban Tai jungle, as well as targeting a more discerning and repsectful crowd. This comes organically from an event that’s more about the music than how many fishbowls you can sell. “Halfmoon just feels a little more focused on what underground music lovers want,” notes DJ regular T-Gecko. “It is a safe environment and the owners have focused their attention on all the small details that add up to a great experience.”

The first edition took place on Valentine’s Day, 2002, attracting 500 partygoers with the objective of curating "only good vibes, good music, and good memories.” Since then this straightforward mission has seen the event steadily grow, to now take place every two weeks and attract up to 3,000 people to each edition. Jao also has a music career of his own with the psytrance project Tripical Note, which takes him on international tours including playing the likes of Germany’s Sea You Festival and Switzerland’s Burning Mountain. “I love the quality and production there. They have inspired me a lot,” he says, noting that every year he brings inspiration from his travels home to upgrade his own event. Halfmoon is the centre his life orbits around. When attending the event, we also meet his wife, son and sister working various roles. “It is not just my family; everyone on the island is involved. We all love to party, so we do not consider what we do as work; it is our passion,” Jao says.

One change in recent years is Halfmoon growing into a two-day affair, with the festivities beginning with an opening pre-party held at the Harmony Beach Club which opened in 2020. “Following the pandemic, we decided to create the ideal festival atmosphere,” explains Jao of the expansion that makes the most of what the island has to offer. Though this brings the beach into play at Halfmoon, it’s a far cry from the messy Full Moon parties the festival was founded to subvert. Instead it serves more like a low-key primer for the main event. Running from 2:PM to midnight, the vibe starts relaxed, offering festivalgoers that chance to mingle and make friends in a comfortable setting before they let loose the next day at the late-night chaos to come.

It’s a Monday in early September when we visit, but the days of the week don’t seem to register in Koh Pha-ngan. The crowd is mostly here on holiday, and in the early afternoon, they lounge and enjoy the beach club amenities, which range from a picturesque infinity pool and skate park to a choice of restaurants and free surfboard use, with access to a small (and tidy) private beach. The venue blends snugly into the environment: sustainable materials like bamboo are used for bars, chairs and tables, canopies made from dried palm leaves provide shade, and drinks are served in reusable cups, feeding into eco-friendly intentions of Halfmoon.

As the sun sets, the sandy dancefloor fills out and Harmony also proves it packs a punch as a clubbing venue. The soundsystem is powerful and clean, filling the air with catchy basslines and emotive synth riffs from the mix of local and international DJs on the bill. British DJ Faith delivers rolling beats, with moments of stuttering vocal chops and weighty bass throbs; Halfmoon resident Vakabular opens with soaring melodic sounds, before drawing strong responses for playful edits of Gorillaz and Daft Punk; Bangkok-born T-Gecko personifies the easy-going vibe of the party, casually smoking cigs and drinking cocktails through a straw while spinning a wigged-out remix of Moloko ‘Sing It Back’ and a spacey version of Inner City’s house classic ‘Good Life’.

“The experience at the pre-event and the main party is totally different,” T-Gecko tells us. “The DJ booth is lower and closer to the crowd so you really feel the atmosphere from the dancers, the lighting is more minimal so it feels like more of an intimate party for music lovers. It starts in the daytime so the atmosphere and crowd builds slowly until the sun goes down then the visuals and entertainers really go to the next level.”

By the time headliner Silver Panda takes the reins with a set of mainly vocal-led anthems, spanning Depeche Mode to RÜFÜS DU SOL, there’s an undeniable party vibe across Harmony. The bamboo structure above the DJ booth is doused in colourful lighting as a disco ball beams bright polka dots across the crowd. In their midst, a circle opens up and is filled with fire spinners who light up the night with incendiary acrobatics. The temperature is still balmy, and for anyone seeking a cool down, there’s six feet high industrial fans around the edge of the dancefloor that blow a luxurious breeze. At the back of the crowd, a spotlit palm tree and glowing, wood-woven half moon installation are an elegant touch against the darkened skies.

The midnight curfew gives plenty of time to rest and fill the following day with the many treasures of Koh Pha-ngan, whether you want to hike to a waterfall and enjoy panoramic views of the luscious island from above, relax on the beach amid dips in the bath-warm ocean, or take a moped taxi to a local elephant sanctuary for the more adventurous. Come nightfall, it’s time to hit the jungle for the main event.

Pulling up to the venue, there’s that welcoming throb of bass seeping through the trees and palpable excitement among the arriving punters, some of whom are being smeared in neon body paint by local artists at the entrance.

The festival takes place inside a custom-built arena among the trees, with various food stalls, bars and three music stages. The first you encounter upon entry is The Cave, where DJs specialise in rap, reggaeton and R&B. The vibe inside is intimate, with the sultry energy tempered by the air conditioning blasting across the dancefloor, which is tucked inside a Quonset hut-esque steel structure that’s dressed in foliage. Next up is the G Floor, which has an almost amphitheatre vibe to it with stepped levels at the side of a sunken dancefloor which sits in front of a raised stage while palms trees tower behind. The soundsystem is loud and crisp, fully absorbing you into the atmosphere when you’re in the thick of the layered crowd, all illuminated by a glittering disco ball. It’s bouncing well before midnight comes around.

Venture a little further up the central path and you arrive at the biggest and most highly-produced area, the Prime stage. A kaleidoscope of colour, it's a blur of beaming lasers, bright projection mapping visuals, and a psychedelic central art installation created by Carin Dickson, with a trippy canopy suspend above the dancefloor and strands of neon LEDs flickering up its central pillar like the levels on a mixer. The stage toes the line between feeling vast and cosmic, but with a closed-in feeling from the balconies constructed around the edge that lock in the vibes.

The sets on the Prime stage live up to the bold setting. Resident DJ Konos gets the energy building early with remixes of Bronski Beat and ‘Rhythm of the Night’, propelling them with warm basslines, before hitting more ecstatic heights with cuts spanning The Chemical Brothers to ‘Freed From Desire’. Silver Panda follow, drawing for transcendent melodic techno cuts such as their Sevenn collab ‘Deep Space’ and the more groovy link-up with Illusionize and Emy Perez ‘Sully’, as well as hitting hard with an edit of Flowdan, Fred again.. and Skrillex’s ‘Rumble’ for good measure. Ghost Rider opts for floaty, emotional sounds, while Blastoyz pushes things considerably harder with a psytrance-heavy set, including his playful Reality Test collab ‘ABCD’.

The G Floor is the focal point for house and tech-house and showcases some of the best sets of the evening. T-Gecko proves a highlight again. He has dance music in his blood, having moved to neighbouring island Koh Samui as a teenager where his mum helped run the beloved Gecko beach bar which booked many world-touring DJs. “I grew up surrounded by great music,” he says. “This was the time when my love for the scene started and I was fascinated by how the famous guest DJs could control the vibe and energy with their mixing. I asked them for advice and started to collect my own music and learn how to use the equipment.” He brings all that expertise to the fore in an uplifting set driven by selections which make you feel good. “I really like the deep organic sounds, synth hooks and heavy basslines which really work well on the G Floor,” he adds. “I just feel very blessed to have the opportunity to play to such a cool and knowledgable crowd.”

Another highlight is Dont Blink, a duo with releases on labels such as Nervous Records and Repopulate Mars, represented tonight by Bali-based German member Oskar Eichler. He whips up the crowd with pumping house and tech-house anthems such as ‘What Happened Last Night’ and their rousing remix of ‘It Started In Chicago’. He’s on the first night of a Thailand tour and has plenty of love for the local scene. “The crowds are insanely dedicated to the music, they stay all night, they dance all night. They love it,” Oskar tells us. “They're really open as well for different music styles and genres. We've come here over the last five years and it's always a pleasure to be back. Our music really resonates.”

He considers how Thailand’s more relaxed laws in comparison to neighbouring countries (there’s weed shops everywhere and pre-roll joints are readily sold at the festival) may be helping in that respect. “Electronic music traditionally in the West is kind of connected with substances and stuff like this. Other countries in Asia it's a little bit more conservative, so it's more of an alcohol culture, but here people come out, have a smoke, enjoy the party. You connect a little bit deeper with the music to some degree, right?” Oskar ponders. He confides that his first visit to Koh Pha-ngnan was as a teenager for a Full Moon party, which ended with him passed out drunk on a roadside and waking to the mother of all sunburns. Now older and wiser, he appreciates the more music-focused underpinning of Halfmoon.

In general, the impact of tourism and Western travellers on the festival is evident, with a largely international crowd. “For Koh Pha-ngnan, the format of Halfmoon fits really well, because it's a combination of wilderness and beach. It's cool that people get to experience both,” notes Oskar. It’s not hard to see why travellers are drawn to Thai islands, especially Europeans in winter. The weather is blissful, the people are welcoming, the food is out of this world, and if you can afford the journey, the prices once there are more than reasonable — we have some of the best meals of our lives for under £2, which feels better than dropping €15 on a bottle of water in Ibiza.

T-Gecko sees this party tourism as a positive. “The best thing about the scene here on the islands is bringing together people from every corner of the world. Everyone is in a great holiday mood and Thai people are very friendly and open to meeting new people. That and the laidback hippy style dress and hot evenings on the island gives it a more ‘free party’ community feel,” he says. He adds that it isn’t just Thailand as a destination that is attracting people, but the unique music scene that is developing on its own accord. “There are some really great local DJs and producers too who have developed an island style of music that really keeps people dancing,” he says. “It's easier than ever to access music you like and develop your own style, not just rely on foreigners to bring their music with them.”

Predictably, big international partying brands with their exorbitant prices are beginning to catch on to the growing market, with the likes of Electric Daisy Carnival and Tomorrowland recently announcing debut editions in Thailand for 2025 and 2026 respectively, with backing from the Thai government. Sam Choksi, who runs Halfmoon’s marketing, tells me Jao spoke with government officials 20 years ago about the potential benefits that music festivals could bring to Thailand and got laughed out of the room. Now seemingly proven as a visionary, he’s intent on keeping Halfmoon’s countercultural origins going as a more underground, authentic representation of the Thai party scene as the country’s festival scene expands. “Tomorrowland and EDC are money makers – they are super commercial, they're designed for young school kids,” he says. “Our concept is more non-commercial and we kept the festival more secret, targeting mature crowds, who party with respect.” Its timing, when the island is more relaxed and less crowded, feeds into that free and easy party vibe — set up for those who know. “All the other events surrounding the Full Moon are the ones for the music lovers,” agrees Oskar.

The number of music lovers present at Halfmoon is evident when Tripical Note close out the festival on the Prime Stage, on a night that happens to be Jao’s birthday in a fortunate moment of the stars (and moon) aligning. Billed to play until 7:AM, they push well beyond the curfew and the dancefloor remains packed out as they spin a celebratory set of progressive psytrance, fuelled by staccato beats and wet, screwface bass sounds. The sun is beaming high in the sky by the time the main stage eventually winds down and the satisfied dancers disperse. But with the next edition in two weeks, it’ll soon be firing for a new crowd of dance music fanatics — then again, and again, and again.

Find future dates and tickets at halfmoonfestival.com

Patrick Hinton is Mixmag's Editor & Digital Director, follow him on Twitter